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The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

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Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#151

Post by killjoywashere »

madengr wrote: post #118
noonespecial wrote: post #51

I thought about this when I visited the Hoover Dam. The audacity of the thing and sheer impossibility of doing anything remotely like it in today's America makes it seem like a relic from an ancient civilization. It felt like visiting the pyramids in Egypt.

The development of the atomic bomb also amazes me. I get a kick out of this video setting up the first test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7CmcsOubZ8 No hard-hats No shirts Free climbing tower with no safety lines Cigarette hanging from mouth No way they could ever pull this off today. No way the Apollo program could be pulled off either.

SpaceX is well on their way to re-inventing the Apollo program. Those rockets are huge compared to a Falcon Heavy, and they would literally need a much larger facility to build them, but they'll do it. And they'll do it with hard hats, shirts, safety lines, and in a smoke free environment.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#152

Post by ghaff »

bluGill wrote: post #144
ghaff wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dams specifically are... complicated. There are a lot of reasons why dams are more likely to be torn down these days than built. Some are necessary for flood control but dams often have very significant negative environmental effects. It's also hard to imagine building the interstate highway system today but, in general, a greater concern about the environmental impact of infrastructure projects isn't really a bad th…

They are not building many interstates, but existing ones are being expanded around cities. They are also upgrading a lot of little two lane country roads to freeways - except for the name they are interstates.

Yes. But by and large those don't involve new right of ways. The interstate highway system involved a huge amount of land taking by eminent domain. The legal challenges today would be immense. In part because the country is just more built up but it's also generally harder for the government to just buy up land because they're the government, to say nothing of environmental etc. challenges.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#153

Post by pikzen »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #95
michaelt wrote: post #12

That suggests that U.S. costs are high due to general inefficiency [...] Americans have simply ponied up more and more cash over the years while ignoring the fact that they were getting less and less for their money. There's a general effect in political systems, that if a law takes $20 from 1,000,000 people and gives $100,000 to 200 people, the people who lose money won't have enough incentive to put up a big fight;…

>campaign finance reform, perhaps? Abso-fucking-lutely. I think in order to run at any levels of office, you should be using public money. For simplification, let's say if one wants to run for president, they can only use whatever is in the FEC public coffers. In return, we levy a federal FEC tax to boost it way higher than its current rates. We replicate a similar tax at state and local levels. Completely remove pri…

Or do like every sensible country does, cap individual donations, forbid companies from donating, create a government entity whose goal is to ensure donations are respecting those rules, candidates having to deliver their list of donors to said entity. Make it actually illegal to get private money from PACs and other complex setups. And eventually reimburse part of the campaign past a certain percentage of votes.

But that requires to unfuck the entire american political system and weird fascination for corporations being people, so this might take a while.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#154

Post by kmicklas »

gwern wrote: post #122
jboggan wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothesis: nicotine is a nootropic [0] good for say, 6 IQ points on average (Danish study I saw referenced, not linking unless I can find the original paper). The Hoover Dam and many other great infrastructure projects were created in the earlier 20th century when smoking was pervasive. Perhaps we were somewhat smarter in aggregate back then and that's why we can't engineer infrastructure at the same level anymore.…

There aren't 6 point differences between France, China, Japan, and the USA. It's more like 2 points. And if 2, or 6 points could double construction costs, then in the poorest countries like Africa everything would have to cost something like 100x more, which is definitely not the case.

Ooooo, daily dose of HN racism.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#155

Post by jimmyk »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #136
bluGill wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running for president, fund my trips around the country, and my ads on TV. Nobody in their right mind would elect me, but I have yet to see a fair way to exclude me.

I'm a private company (or private billionaire). I like your opponent. I put ads up on TV for them using my money. How can anyone stop me without it being a First Amendment violation? And while it isn't giving that politician money, there are plenty who will recognize that my paying for their add is giving them a service that is worth money. It isn't quite as direct as donating, but the effect is the same.

>I put ads up on TV for them using my money. How can anyone stop me without it being a First Amendment violation?

How can we even decide whether an ad is for some candidate? If it doesn't mention them by name, but is plainly obviously talking about them, would that still count? What if it's less obvious? What if it doesn't have anything to do with the candidate, but promotes some policy that the candidate also happens to support? All seem to fall under the category of 'giving them a service that is worth money'.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#156

Post by bluGill »

resf wrote: post #91
rrauenza wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question reminded me of the resistance of PEX adoption in California, even though it has been widely accepted in Canada. http://www.remodeling.hw.net/products/house-systems/californ... I was surprised the article didn't address regulation much nor the fear of litigation (when I googled for canada pex legal, I found class action suits...)

The obvious next question being, _are_ PEX pipes safe? Perhaps California is just ahead of the curve banning it.

As far as we can tell. Pex is just polyethylene or (C2h4)n - there is nothing about that chemical formula to be particularly concerned about. It doesn't leach anything - when pure water is desired it the most common pipe to specify as it is cheap and works well (glass is better but that is mostly because glass does not allow air to through to dissolve in your water - and obviously more expensive)

The alternative is copper and cPVC. cPVP is just another plastic. Copper leaches copper into your water (though not harmful for most purposes), and is attacked by common water ph to corrode and ultimately break requiring replacement (though this takes about a lifetime). Copper is more expensive - 10 feet of copper pipe will cost as much as 100 feet of pex, and you have to join the copper every 10 feet: more expensive labor.

The claimed worry is impurities from manufacturing exposes workers to them when the pipes are first turned on. Note that there is no particular reason to believe those objections do not apply to approved pipes. My opinion is they don't like the idea of pex because it is less labor which means less money for them.

I personally use pex for all my plumbing in my house. It is cheap, quick and easy.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#157

Post by bluGill »

bogomipz wrote: post #78

I don't know if "forgotten" as used in the title is the correct word so much as just "out of practice." Look at this list of infrastructure projects in China in the last decade or so: http://www.businessinsider.com/giant-chinese-infrastructure-... It's hard not to be impressed by that list. And China is undertaking these scale projects abroad as well from Latin America to Africa. It's should be no surprise that you g…

The US is doing a lot of building. Not as much as China, but more than enough to be good at it.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#158

Post by TetOn »

This article from 2011 (http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril-2011/more-b...) makes a compelling case that, after decades of cutting government jobs and creeping privatization, we simply don't have enough bureaucrats to organize and run large, complex projects anymore. These other countries having success with infra projects still do. Thus the issue.

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#159

Post by bluGill »

vmarsy wrote: post #79

> Yet France’s trains cost much less. Decades of expertise might be a reason here, France has the longest amount of (high speed rail miles / country area), and the non high-speed network is also huge. It's also possible that the monopoly of having only one, state-owned, railroad company (SNCF) let that company negotiate/choose better prices much more aggressively than if there was many companies. I don't think it was…

The US non high speed rail network is also huge. However it handles freight not people so few people realize just how great the rail system is here. (our passenger rail is terrible)

Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure

#160

Post by mistermann »

abalashov wrote: post #97
mistermann wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest, there are not that many examples to choose from. What I like about China is, it illustrates how effective a mostly benevolent dictatorship is. It is the optimal political system imho, provided it remains benevolent of course, which is no small feat. Provided they don't trip and fall, if China is not the absolute supreme leader of the planet in 25 - 50 years I will be shocked.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it benevolent. Just because it's not Idi Amin or Pol Pot doesn't mean it's benevolent. In fact, there is a valid question as to whether any regime, anywhere is benevolent[1]. But rather than getting bogged down in quantifying the exact degree of its benevolence, it's key not to let your larger and more important point get lost alongside that red herring, and it's one that gets little p…

> it's key not to let your larger and more important point get lost alongside that red herring, and it's one that gets little press here: China and SE Asia have shown, over a period of decades, that heavy-handed state-guided development alongside market forces is a credible third alternative to the One True neoliberal agenda the West has pushed since the 1980s.

Thank you for being a refreshing voice of reason.

I think China's "benevolence", if that's what it indeed is (only time will tell), may not look like it because they are working towards a longer term goal, and for reasons of prudence, sometimes you have to make unfortunate compromises (such as absolutely violating basic human rights of some of your citizens) to achieve goals in a timely manner (strike while the iron is hot).

This is just my theory, there's no way of knowing if it is correct.

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